Jane Shaw

Senior Fellow Emeritus

Before joining PERC, Jane Shaw was a journalist who had developed an uneasy feeling that much of the commentary about environmental policy that she read–and even some that she wrote–was tilted in the wrong direction. The usual solution to an environmental problem was to turn it over to the government. She had become uncomfortable with this policy.

In 1983, while an editor at Business Week, Shaw attended PERC’s National Conference for Journalists in Montana. There she discovered a group of people who had thought carefully about environmental issues and concluded that the role of government was overrated and the value of the private sector too often ignored. A year later, she joined PERC. Today, Shaw is a principled advocate of market approaches.

As a senior fellow of PERC Shaw directs PERC’s editorial outreach program and has written more than 130 published articles about environmental and economic issues. They have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, and USA Today, as well as more academic outlets such as Public Choice and the Cato Journal. Shaw also directs PERC’s conferences for business executives and for many years directed PERC’s conference for journalists.

Shaw is co-author with Michael Sanera of Facts, Not Fear: A Parents’ Guide to Teaching Children About the Environment (Regnery Publishing, Inc.). She helped develop PERC’s environmental education program, which provides curriculum materials that are more balanced than a great deal of environmental education today. Shaw also edited with Ronald D. Utt, A Guide to Smart Growth (Heritage and PERC).

Before joining PERC, Shaw was an associate economics editor of Business Week. From 1977 to 1981, she was a Washington correspondent for McGraw-Hill Publications, where she wrote for Business Week and other McGraw-Hill magazines and newsletters; before that, she was a correspondent for McGraw-Hill in Chicago. She received her B.A. degree from Wellesley College.

Shaw is a past president of the Association of Private Enterprise Education, www.aapee.org. She is the editorial advisor for Econ Journal Watch, a member of the Editorial Advisory Panel of Regulation, a senior editor of Liberty, and a member of the Editorial Advisory Council of the Institute of Economic Affairs (London). She lives in Bozeman with her husband, Richard Stroup, and their son, David. She is a member of the Bozeman Planning Board.

Articles by Jane Shaw

The March 1996 issue of PERC Reports included an essay by Earth First! co-founder Dave Foreman. Several letters to the editor expressed gratitude, others suggested we'd been wrong to provide a platform for a radical activist. We compiled several of the letters to highlight the debate.